Out of the farmhouse steps SHARON GIRARDI. She is wearing an ankle-length jumper made from nettles, and has a magpie nesting on her head. “Hi-Die-Hi, camper!” she sings in a contralto. “We have a strict anti-vax policy, so can I just check you haven’t had one?”
“Oh no, I’ve never had any policies. Well, there was one about pork markets, but that was more of a meme,” says LIZ. “Are you the housekeeper? Where are my Red Boxes?”
SHARON sings, in a soprano: “Oh, there’s plenty of foxes. We’ve got amazing beavers, too. We are all as nature intended here. Let me show you to your yurt.”
INTERIOR. YURT. LIZ stands on a rag rug. There is a futon made from recycled orange boxes. A goose walks past. She says quietly to herself: “When they said Chevening was 17th century, I thought they meant manor, not hovel.”
EXTERIOR. FIELD. LIZ picks her way carefully through the swedes, but gets in a mess with the Turnip Taliban. SHARON is showing her around. “We are a safe space for all to live according to their beliefs,” she sings in a baritone. “No matter how unpopular among the mainstream.”
From stage right, International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan bursts in. “It ain’t ‘alf cold, mum!” she shouts. “There’s no global warming! The eco-fanatics have got it wrong, AGAIN!” SHARON karate chops her in the neck.
Home Secretary Priti Patel pops up from behind a wheelbarrow. “We will crack down on the Extinction Rebellion M25 zealots!” she yells. SHARON whacks her with a large marrow.
“The important thing,” she raps, “is getting the facts about the vax scene. Experiments are intense, we don’t need no education, we just need solarisation, our guests are all protected from the wilfully uninfected.”
LIZ trips over a man sunbathing in the cabbages. It is her nemesis, Dominic Raab C. Nesbitt.
“Hi Liz,” says DOMINIC. “I see the equality bandwagon got you here in one piece. Of course, you realise that Chevening is traditionally the holiday home of the Deputy Prime Minister, which is me. I can’t get to Crete, it’s shut.”
LIZ stamps a high heel in the mud. “I am the Foreign Secretary, and it is MY holiday home. It was written in smaller writing On The Brexit Buses, underneath the bit about empty shelves, 18-year-old ex-waiters retraining as HGV drivers, and rampant inflation.”
Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries is dropped into their row from a helicopter flown by Ant and Dec. “The BBC should be promoting British values, not Left-wing radicals!” she croaks. “Wimbledon must have a Brittas Umpire, there should be more birds on the weather, and it must be the law that we have to work in the orifice!”
Prince Andrew walks on to the screen. He looks at everyone. Everyone looks at him. He is sweating. He walks off again.
LIZ says: “Was that the Duke of Dork?” SHARON replies: “Oh, that’s Mr Royle. I’ve asked him to look for my pussy.”
(
Image:
BBC)
INTERIOR. YURT. MORNING. LIZ and DOMINIC are both in their pyjamas. They make breakfast to the tune of a big band playing The Stripper. SHARON is a dangling from the ceiling on a trapeze made from hemp.
“We don’t allow the vaccinated into our safe space, in case someone catches swollen testicles,” she trills in vibrato. “Immunity causes impotence and can be transmitted via microchips every time you cough. We’re fully booked and waiting for Zod to decide who survives.”
DOMINIC and LIZ look at each other but say nothing. They have decided that pretending to be unvaccinated is the best way of staying at prestigious Chevening.
Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty’s head pops out of the toaster. “You should all be ashamed,” he says. “There are a number of silly hippies who fly around with both feet in the grave. We’re heading for a winter lockdown, you utter numpties.” He looks around. “Aren’t you two supposed to be at Chevening?”
(
Image:
PA)
The Prime Minister bursts in, wearing a bear. “Did someone say beavers? Plural? What are you lot doing here, shouldn’t you be at Chevening?”
Michael Gove slithers between the PM’s legs. He is smiling behind a large beard. “I’m afraid I have very bad news,” he says in a delighted tone of voice. “Mark Drakeford, the vaxxer of Denbigh, is on his way, he says Wales is getting Covid passports.”
SHARON falls off her trapeze. DOMINIC and LIZ both get stuck in the door trying to escape. The PM is teaching a beaver to say “Yes, Sinister”. Gove sheds his skin. Prince Andrew exits stage left, pursued by the bear.
TITLES ROLL as a newsreader says: “And finally, Wales has opened its first leper colony since 1798. The Blaeneinion eco-resort is now hosting all the most socially-unacceptable people in the UK. Villagers say they are shunning the idiot who dreamt this one up, but local lemmings are delighted, telling us: ‘At least we’re not the centre of attention any more’.
“Tune in next week for another instalment of Totally Normal Country, a British-values production that makes people laugh for all the wrong reasons.”
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